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Post by HMARK Center on Apr 23, 2024 15:48:11 GMT -5
Was just about to comment on this; the wording I've seen is that it applies to "all workers", though I'm sure more details will come out to specify if this covers "independent contractors" or not.
If nothing else, it does open the door for people to challenge the system WWE's had in place where it's basically "here's three months notice we're not going to use you, now sit home and lose out on building hype before your contract runs out."
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Post by HMARK Center on Apr 23, 2024 12:33:13 GMT -5
I have a coworker who's a huge Islanders fan, I might need to check on him to see what last night did to his health.
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Post by HMARK Center on Apr 23, 2024 12:32:16 GMT -5
Mets lose two in a row after winning six in a row, and it seems their main vulnerability is starting to come into focus: the starting pitching isn't bad, but it's currently a rotation of mostly guys who are middle-to-back end types (Quintana, Houser, Manaea), plus guys who are capable of more but aren't likely to emerge as aces, as Severino's been decent but not dominant and Butto has shown some real potential but isn't proven yet. A lot of these guys need to locate their pitches in order to be effective, since they lack the stuff for movement or sheer power to do the job for them, and it's leading to them walking way too many hitters. Some of that's understandable - playing the Braves and Dodgers in a short span of time can make that the case - but it's too much, and last night was another case of it as Quintana walked five Giants. It's still early, granted: Houser and Quintana are off to a bad starts but have track records of being a decent back end guy, so it's possible they rights the ship. But until Senga gets back there's no one to turn to as a real top of the rotation arm, and in a division with Atlanta and Philly the leashes may have to be short. Bright side: down on the farm the Mets currently have Joey Lucchesi as a depth piece who's capable of solid big league production, but they also have intriguing young prospect Christian Scott looking pretty damned good so far. Scott will likely force his way to the bigs at some point this year; I'm sure they'd like him to save his bullets a bit, so it's possible he'd come up and work out of the bullpen so his innings count doesn't jump too high in one year, but it's nice to know those options are there. I don't want to do a panic move and jump these guys up right away because a starter has had a couple bad starts out of four total so far, but it's going to be a situation they need to keep an eye on, for sure. It's wild that baseball has reviews, but you can't review a strike call on a ball half a foot outside the zone or on an ejection where the ump admits Boone is probably right but his feelie wheelies are hurt. Baseball is a great sport with godawful everything else. Yeah, I'd rather avoid going full robot umps, but I think I'm ok with managers getting to instantly challenge a couple particularly egregious strike/ball calls per game.
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Post by HMARK Center on Apr 23, 2024 12:21:51 GMT -5
Maybe the best streamer reaction to anything ever:
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Post by HMARK Center on Apr 23, 2024 12:19:05 GMT -5
So, I just bought this: a blu-ray of the 1980s Dinosaur specials starring the late Gary Owens and Eric Boardman.Seriously, these tapes were everything to me as a tiny little preschool dino-nut, and when the guys behind them at Midwich Entertainment did a Kickstarter over a decade ago to get them on DVD I was all over it, and even got things from them like the soundtrack of the shows (which is just pure 80s goodness and done by movie composer David Spears), a poster done by the Chiodo brothers (yes, the Killer Klown guys) that was autographed and personalized by Gary Owens, all kinds of stuff that just sent my nostalgic heart aflutter. Even ended up being how I learned one part of one of the specials had been cut from its airing on Disney Channel way back in the day - my parents had taped the Disney airing for me, but it turns out they'd cut the sequence of Gary and Eric riding the then-new dinosaur ride at Knott's Berry Farm in California, since that'd be hyping the theme park competition. Well, now they're putting *all* of the specials, including the original TV-only "pilot" style one done for Disney Channel (even shot in part at the old EPCOT Center Universe of Energy) and one called Return of Dinosaurs that hadn't gotten onto DVD, on blu-ray and I'm really happy to get my hands on it. Heck, I hadn't even known they'd done called "The Volcano Show" or "Prehistoric World", which focused on the Ice Age...would've just been another thing that had me dying to visit the La Brea Tar Pits when I was a little kid, something it only took me about 32 years of my life to check off the list. This was a reel for those shows back in the 80s, if anyone else remembers them:
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Post by HMARK Center on Apr 23, 2024 11:38:55 GMT -5
This is likely the 1st of at least 2 or a trilogy of matches between Danielson & Ospreay. I'm not sure it's fair to compare the 'story' to something like Flair/HBK. What we got Sunday was Act 1 Which is admittedly why I'm a bit surprised Ospreay won; I thought they might have Danielson win to build to a rematch where the story is how Ospreay's able to adapt his game to win. Then again, if they want to hold off on Ospreay winning the big one at Wembley until next year, they could have a rematch in early summer, have Danielson win, then have the rubber match in London, I suppose. And yeah, the match was fantastic. I can't say it surpasses some of my favorite NJPW ones over the past near-decade, but it was excellent and left me wanting more.
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Post by HMARK Center on Apr 22, 2024 14:46:57 GMT -5
He and Vader did have some decent chemistry, I thought; a lot of that trilogy holds up well.
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Post by HMARK Center on Apr 22, 2024 11:46:49 GMT -5
League office watching that game in Winnipeg last night and loving all the offense.
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Post by HMARK Center on Apr 22, 2024 11:27:09 GMT -5
Joe is a perfect heel world champion. Instantly believable, delivers constantly, charismatic and smug. When in doubt, break the Joe glass and give him the strap. I'm glad he got a world title after all these years. Dude never stopped being "the champ" to me after his ROH run, but sheesh, crazy to think how long ago his TNA world title run was (and how poorly his reign was booked there).
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Post by HMARK Center on Apr 22, 2024 11:25:46 GMT -5
I'd say maybe he should just go back to WWE, where crowds won't care that he's not a great human being, and overexposed all to hell. But I think the clock is rapidly ticking on even that. Hes under contract till the end of December 2025 so that isn't an option anytime soon. Tony seems to love Jericho like he did Punk, so he's seemingly not going to step in and say he needs a long break from all things AEW. So I'm expecting him to be all over TV till his contract is up, and even then I wouldn't be surprised if Tony gives him a new deal.
Actually, if there's going to be a time when his TV time reduces, it'll likely be once the new media rights deal is finalized. Again, a major reason he gets used is because he does move numbers for them with regards to TV ratings; he and the Bucks tend to be the guys who book themselves to go on during the toughest quarters (i.e. when the most commercials/wraparounds are going to happen) because they know they can eat it if the numbers dip, but they tend to keep numbers fairly steady during those stretches. Plus, he's also just a name executives would know, and that helps the general "we're a serious operation and you should pay us like one" deal. Once the new deal's locked in, though? Not saying he's going to vanish, but it likely eases the perceived need to feature him as much.
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Post by HMARK Center on Apr 22, 2024 6:20:00 GMT -5
Yes Mone is likely going to win the TBS title, but I'm happy that Willow still got her moment Thinking there'll be some weirdness involved, and Willow will be chasing to get it back from her.
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Post by HMARK Center on Apr 22, 2024 5:50:50 GMT -5
They're in a weird spot with him; for as worn out as he is for many regular AEW viewers, he's apparently still valuable when it comes to maintaining ratings during tougher quarters when Dynamite's on, so they want to use him, and he does want to put newer guys over...but it doesn't change that he's stale, and a lot of his angles drag on past their expiration date. So you want him around for the former, but need to fix the latter.
This new bit he's doing could be the reinvention he needs, but he'd also benefit from some time away; fans got used to him dipping out for awhile over the years, but he's been a pretty steady fixture in AEW since day one at this point.
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Post by HMARK Center on Apr 22, 2024 4:45:30 GMT -5
If he comes back to a great reaction and is in a better place than he was on the card, the latter or which almost feels like a given at this point given he's likely to do something with the Elite, would we say airing the footage worked out pretty well? There seems to be a lot more interest in Jack Perry than I can ever remember, I know I'm looking forward to him coming back a lot more than I was before, and he seems to be doing well on the merch sales front if that floats your boat. Obviously it was more Windy City Riot that got everyone a bit more hyped about him, but a lot of the reactions he got there were surely enhanced by the footage having aired. Wonder if that's what Tony Khan meant when he said it was interesting timing, Punk talking shit about them, that maybe they always planned to air the footage right before what was pencilled in as Perry's final NJPW appearance, in Chicago of all places, and Punk just happened to run his mouth around the same sort of time. I know a few places said it was done with the primary idea being to embarrass Punk but they focussed so little on him and so much more on Jack Perry and FTR that I don't know if I buy it. I'd say that, most likely, both things are true: "maybe this'll finally shut that guy up" but with a clear goal of "let's establish the return of one of our longtime wrestlers off of this". The legacy of showing the footage very likely comes down to how they follow up on this; if Perry really cements himself as a top guy moving forward and the crowd's more invested in what he does now, then it'll have been worthwhile. People can talk about how it confused motivations for the crowd (e.g. the "why are the heel Young Bucks airing this when it's very likely to get them babyface reactions against Punk's real life friends" argument) to some degree for the match, but it's a case where the long term benefit may far outweigh any initial weirdness, if they play their cards right.
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Post by HMARK Center on Apr 22, 2024 4:39:18 GMT -5
I've said a bunch of times that given how big a fan I've been of the guy for 20 years, I'd have been thrilled with him holding the belt for a year.
But they got it right, here; the most you could've pushed Swerve's coronation off to was Double or Nothing, but doing it last night worked, and Joe still walks away from the belt feeling like a legitimate champ who had a solid run. Not a "transitional" champ, I agree, but it did have that air of "thank you" run to it, and ain't nothing wrong with that.
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Post by HMARK Center on Apr 21, 2024 20:13:04 GMT -5
Mercedes kind of slaying it in that dress.
And you know I'm serious because "slay" is not at all in my vernacular.
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Post by HMARK Center on Apr 21, 2024 20:09:22 GMT -5
If I understand correctly, Julia's been nursing an injury; if so, that match solidly covered it while still keeping her protected.
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Post by HMARK Center on Apr 21, 2024 20:04:27 GMT -5
AEW, get your people watching monitors like normal people, pls.
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Post by HMARK Center on Apr 21, 2024 19:58:15 GMT -5
ADAM GOT MISTED WE'RE GONNA GET BROOD COPELAND! This time Gangrel can introduce him ...how had I not even thought of that possibility? Ok, get to a Christian face turn (even a temporary one) and go full reunion, let's do this thing.
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Post by HMARK Center on Apr 21, 2024 19:56:28 GMT -5
Black mist!
Malakai about to unlock Brood Edge in AEW.
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Post by HMARK Center on Apr 21, 2024 19:52:58 GMT -5
Time to get the Trios division back to being like this.
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